REALLY HEARING

"Who hath ears to hear, let him hear." (Matthew 13:9)

This morning I found myself thinking about a short story that my 8th Grade English teacher, Mrs. Wheatley, read to our class over 40 years ago. I never forgot the story. It's called "Fever Dream" and it's written by science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. There's a great synopsis of the story on wikipedia at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fever_Dream

While some prefer to see all kinds of symbolism of adolescent development and conflict in the story, I tend to think Bradbury meant it quite literally. In the story, hostile microbes are taking over the body of a fever ridden thirteen-year-old boy. He desperately tries to warn his parents and doctor about what is going on and begs for their help. To them, it's just the ramblings of a boy with a high fever. They pay no attention to him. From their point of view, he miraculously recovers. Yet, the writer lets us know that he has NOT truly recovered. Rather, the microbes HAVE taken him over, and what all observers THOUGHT was the case, WAS NOT! That's how it ends.

Forty years, and I never forgot that. I think I even referenced it once before on the blog, but in a much more general way. I've seen that happen. More than once. (A 13-year-old boy taken over and transformed by hostile microbes? NO, of course not! But I mean that someone is DESPERATELY TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING and you jump to conclusions and don't get it at all.) I admit I'm a TERRIBLE listener. I talk and I talk and I talk, and I often DON'T listen. Even if I listen audibly, I really don't "hear" what somebody is saying. I remember a guy in our church in late 1998. He was in his late 60s. I'll call him "Ted" but that was not his name. Ted was in church a lot in early December that year. He was talking a mile a minute. He was very warm and friendly. He gave gifts to some people. He phoned me one day; it was a pleasant call, and he said, "Pastor, I want you to know I'm doing O.K."
About a week after that, he disconnected the air bags in his Lincoln Town Car. He drove it into a large tree at a high rate of speed and was killed instantly. He had a lot of conversations with people and a lot of contact with people. We didn't hear him.

There was also a guy who attended our church that I will call "Dennis". Dennis was heavy-set, kind of tall, somewhat outspoken and very opinionated. He was talking constantly. He came across as very macho and he was constantly talking about doing great things for God. One of our deacons said that Dennis often said to him, "If the people of this church really knew me, they wouldn't like me." The deacon could not understand that. That deacon LOVED Dennis and even looked up to him in many respects. Well, Dennis was eventually arrested for committing a very serious crime. Dennis went to prison. Dennis had been living a double life for years. We didn't "hear" him.

In the mid 1980s a boy at Canton (MA) High School (my alma mater) left a strange note for one of his teachers. It said, "I feel like killing somebody". The boy was kind of a weird jokester. (This was not during my time at Canton High...I graduated over a decade before this.) The teacher read the note but did not take it at all seriously. The boy murdered one of his classmates in a very gruesome fashion. The kid was tried as an Adult and is still behind bars. He wasn't heard.

I'm one who likes life to be all wrapped up in a nice, neat, safe little package. Really, a LOT of people are like that. A friend of mine says she, "takes people at face value". Yes, a lot of us DO that. We miss SO much that way!

But even when you're suspicious and TRYING TO NOTICE THINGS, you can still be fooled. My father was very street-wise. Yet he missed that my brother was drinking for years, right under his nose. We all did. Eddie was involved in numerous accidents and serious problems. Eddie insisted, "It's ME who has the problem", as my parents blamed his friends, the school, circumstances, etc. Finally, in counseling it came out that he'd been an active alcoholic for four years right under our noses. We did not see it. He TRIED to tell us. We did not hear.

I know, this is a pretty melancholy and sobering piece. For some reason, I awoke thinking of "Fever Dream" and thinking of the fact that too often we DON'T hear and we DON'T perceive what's really going on. If you read the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) carefully, you'll see that Jesus made the SAME point I'm making in this posting- several times.

Oh God, help us to NOT just try to wrap life up in nice, neat little packages which make us feel good. Give us EARS TO HEAR. Give us EYES TO SEE. Help us to be "clued in". Help us to NOT take the easy way. Help us to press in when we need to press in. Grant us wisdom, O Lord. In Jesus' Name, Amen!